It's more than just tasting notes.

The Challenge of Growing Certified Organic Grapes in Long Island.

Virtually every wine grape vineyardist in Long Island wants to work his fields as organically as possible, though very few ever actually intend to become fully organic or certified organic. Most of them farm sustainably, and about twenty vineyards are practicing Certified Sustainable Winegrowers. Shinn Estate in September 2010, succeeded when it harvested its first entirely organic grapes, 2.6 acres of Sauvignon Blanc, but it has been a struggle to maintain organic practices from season to seaason, given the disease pressures on Long Island. a year later the first certified-organic grapes were harvested by a little-known farm with a vineyard in Calverton. The Farrm, owned by Rex Farr, has been organically-certified since 1990, growing various vegetable crops such as heirloom tomatoes, leeks, and lettuce. Its first vinifera grapes were planted in 2005 though its first successful grape harvest took place in October of 2011. On August 28, 2013, Southold Farm announced on its Website that it plans to produce the first Long Island wine made from certified organic grapes purchased from The Farrm’s 2013 harvest.[1]

The challenge has been met, but as Ron Goerler, Jr., former president of the Long Island Wine Council has said, “it’s extremely challenging” and other farmers have tried and failed at it. Nevertheless, several East End gardeners and farmers of other crops have been using organic and biodynamic methods with some success for years now. An excellent article, “Farming to a Different Beat” by Geraldine Pluenneke, published in April 2011, [2] discusses in a very fair-minded way the issues of biodynamic farming and viniculture in Long Island. It points out the success that some of the practitioners have had, such as Amy Pink, a backyard vegetable gardener, or K.K. Haspel, who grows “legendary tomato seedlings,” or Mary Wolz, a beekeeper in Southold who maintains a hundred hives on both forks of the island.

Kareem Massoud, of Paumanok Vineyards, is cited in Pluenneke’s article as saying that “Whatever viticultural methodology allows me to achieve the healthiest, ripest grapes possible is the course that I shall pursue, regardless of whether that method is known as conventional, IPM, sustainable, practicing organic, organic, biodynamic or any other name.” In a separate interview that I had with Louisa Hargrave a years ago, the doyen of Long Island wine vineyards made clear that if she had to do it all over again, she’d consider using Biodynamic® practices.

There is a series of posts in this blog that deals with the individual vineyards and takes off from this piece (now updated to April 2014). So far, twenty of the vineyards of the East End have been written about in Wine, Seriously.

Both the sustainable and organic/Biodynamic® movements in winegrowing are among the most important developments in the wine world in recent years. Whether or not it results in superior wines is difficult to say with any certainty, but that is a separate argument that will not be pursued here. Rather, the focus is on the challenge not only to produce organic wine in Long Island, which represents a special challenge, but also to look at the issue of sustainability in viticulture as a whole.

Let us begin by looking at two excellent wineries: Channing Daughters Winery and Wölffer Estate Vineyards, both in the Hamptons Long Island AVA, which is to say the South Fork of the island, which has fields of Bridgehampton loam—sandy and well-drained—and a Bordeaux-like maritime climate, with Atlantic breezes that ward off frost until late in the harvest season. The two forks, or East End–as they are collectively known, also enjoy the most days of sunshine and longest growing season of all of New York State, though the South Fork has a slightly later onset of spring and a somewhat longer season than the North, as well as a less windy clime. All of the East End has high humidity and, potentially, a great deal of rain right into harvest time.

In discussions with Larry Perrine of Channing Daughters and Richard Pisacano of Wölffer’s, I learned that both had decided against seeking organic certification, though they do practice sustainable viticulture as far as is possible.[3] Their primary reason for rejecting the organic certification route was that the climate conditions—cool and very humid—seriously militates against organic farming. As Perrine pointed out: “Organic is virtually impossible in rainy climates like Bordeaux, Friuli, and LI; downy mildew and black rot cannot be contained by using organic methods.” In Pisacano’s view, “organic certification is too demanding and expensive, apart from the fact that the level of humidity in the area is just too high to allow for organic practices for preventing the control of diseases and molds like powdery mildew and botrytis.”[4] Both want to be able to use conventional pesticides as a fallback if needed, and they also find that added sulfites are needed in the wineries, and these are precluded by USDA Organic Certification;[5] nevertheless, both vineyards do participate in the New York Sustainable Viticulture Program, or VineBalance, as well as in the Long Island Sustainable Winegrowers program, which is itself based on VineBalance and provides a different kind of certification for sustainable (not organic) practices.[6] But all of this was said back in 2009.

The North Fork Long Island AVA shares much of the same terroir as the Hamptons AVA, but it is affected more by its proximity to Long Island Sound than to the Atlantic, and it suffers from similar issues. Only one of its fifty-six vineyards are yet organically certified (The Farrm, as mentioned above), although a number of them, such as Macari Vineyards and Palmer Vineyard work their land as organically and sustainably as possible, as do other vineyards, such as Peconic Bay.[7] In 2009 Joe Macari told me that he no longer believed that 100% organic viticulture is possible in the North Fork, though he practices sustainable farming to the extent possible, using only organic fertilizers and soil work, for example. Back then Jim Silver of Peconic Bay Winery had said flatly that any idea of producing organic grapes in Long Island is simply impossible—the stuff of dreams.[8]

On the other hand, Shinn Estate has been working on conversion to full organic USDA certification and Demeter certification for the last thirteen years. It is now 100% organic in soil work and pest control, and as noted above, has harvested the first (albeit not certified) organic/Biodynamic® grapes in Long Island. If Shinn could have grown 100% organic/ Biodynamic® grapes for three successive years, the Estate would then have become certified, and that would be a major achievement for the East End.[9] Unfortunately despite continued and dedicate effort, disease pressure due to high humidity was such that it did not happen. Instead, Shinn has chosen to join the Long Island Sustainable Winegrowers program, established in 2012 and based on Cornell’s VineBalance. This is a far more viable approach for most if not all vineyards on the Island. (The sole exception has been Rex Farr, who has been growing certified organic produce since 1990 (certification came through the Northeast Organic Farming Association or NOFA). His vines were planted in 2005, with the first harvest taking place in October 2011. Farr sells his fruit to wine producers.)

The discussions mentioned above have taken place over a period of six years and it is clear that the perceptions and ideas about organic/sustainable viniculture in Long Island are still evolving.

What is it that makes it so challenging to grow certified organic wine grapes in Long Island?

Let us then look at what is required to produce certified organic grapes: of first importance is how the chosen method will affect the quality of the wine made from organic grapes, along with the cost of the conversion to a new viticultural regimen, as well as the long-term operating costs—a determining factor with respect to profit. Much literature has been devoted to the advantages of organic or sustainable viticulture, despite the significant obstacles that need to be overcome.

In the United States, the various forms of sustainable grape-growing are:[10]

Organic (certified, which is to say, 100% organic as defined by the United States Department of Agriculture, [USDA] and its National Organic Program [NOP])

Biodynamic® (a special category of organic, but following the tenets of Demeter; not recognized by the USDA)

Sustainable or natural (incorporating organic viticulture, but not completely)

Organic farming is defined by the USDA, as explained by the Organic Consumers Association Web page: [11]

[In 1990] . . . along came the National Organic Program (NOP), also part of the USDA. The NOP’s goal has been to set guidelines for the processing and labeling of organic products and to maintain the “National List” of allowed and prohibited substances. According to the NOP and the ATF . . . there are four categories that organic products can claim:

As can be seen, the range of choices is wide, the ramifications of any particular approach daunting. Time and cost are important considerations in the process of converting from conventional to organic/sustainable practice, and these vary according to the chosen option. In the case of the USDA organic certification, at least 3 years is required to convert a vineyard for certification;[13] if Biodynamic®, the transition is the same as for USDA certification and, in fact, overlaps it.[14]

A comparative study performed by Gerald B. White, of Cornell University, ca 1995, broke out the costs of conventional vs. organic viticulture, and provides a basis for projecting those to be sustained after conversion.[15] The study concluded that the costs of organic farming could be considerably higher than it would be for conventional, but it was conducted in 1995 at a vineyard in the Finger Lakes, using very different varieties (one labrusca & two hybrids) from the vinifera ones grown in Long Island.[16] However, the fact that the three varieties in the experiment each had different issues, results, and costs, suggests that the same may be true with different vinifera varieties.[17] An article in the October 2007 issue of Wines & Vines Magazine, tells of wineries that have had some success with the transition to organic viticulture, including Shinn Estate. Though more an anecdote than a scientific study, it captures much of what has changed since the 1995 Cornell study.[18]

Nevertheless, the choices remain dauntingly complex, for the issue is not merely to choose between USDA-certified organic or non-certified, or between Demeter certification or ACA-only certification[19], but there are different degrees or types of sustainable farming that go beyond standard certification (“natural” winemaking vs. conventional [or interventionist] winemaking as well as socially-responsible viticulture are two matters beyond the purview of this essay, as they are not directly concerned with viticulture proper[20]).

Clearly, a three-year transition period is really a minimum period, as was the case with Shinn Estate, where the process took much more time, before they finally decided to not try to be certified.[21] For certification, the transition needs considerable preparation, including establishing a USDA-mandated buffer zone of at least 25 feet (8 meters) to separate organic transition fields from those farmed conventionally.[22] The conversion also entails some significant adjustments: there can be no chemical sprays, herbicides, and pesticides, or use artificial fertilizer for the vineyard plot, replacing them instead with natural pesticides and herbicides, foliate sprays, and organic manure or compost, which are all more expensive than the industrial versions.[23] On the other hand, fixed costs should not change, nor wage levels, but more manual field work would be necessary, especially if machine harvesting were not used, which would be the case a vineyard went the “natural” route.[24]

As pointed out by Kingley Tobin, “The three main areas of vineyard management to focus on are Weeds, Disease, and Pests.”[25] For weed control, using ground cover is a good sustainable practice, and helps reduce the use of glyphosate-based herbicides that tend to shut down the main precursor to plant phenolics; the improved phenolic content of the grapes should result in a better product.[26]

For disease, as the soil returns to a more natural state and the vines are no longer exposed to industrial products that diminish their ability to resist bacterial and fungal infections, they should, over time, develop Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR).[27] Foliate inputs can be made organic by switching to highly-effective silicate applications such as the Demeter 500-series preparations (e.g., 501 horn-silica) or even horsetail tea, which has been used successfully upstate.[28] Periodic applications of chemical sprays may be needed until SAR has been induced, but the use of tunnel spraying apparatus should keep such sprays from entering the soil. Even this may be avoidable if one applies safe, organic sprays such as sulphur for powdery mildew, while liquid seaweed, fatty acids, compost sprays can all be applied against botrytis. Given the high humidity of the Long Island region, more frequent applications may make up for their general lack of toxicity as compared to industrial ones.

For pest control, properly-selected ground cover, such as clover, will attract bees and other beneficial insects. Ladybugs can be purchased in quantity and released after flowering to prey on aphids, eggs, larvae, scale, and other parasites. [29] Pyrethrums (made from flowers) work naturally to deter wasps and yellow jackets that are attracted to the fruit.[30] Soil-borne pathogens that feed on the root damage caused by phylloxera may be controlled by measured use of hydrogen peroxide, as well as by application of harpins (e.g., Messenger®) on the grapes, while BTH can be used to help increase resistance to Botrytis.[31] All this means much more attention must be paid to the condition of the vineyard throughout the season, compared to a conventional approach. This is essentially the practice of Integrated Pest Management (IPM).[32]

This can all be accomplished over time, though much experimentation as well as trial-and-error will usually be necessary, as every vineyard will have unique issues of its own. The bottom line is that organic viticulture is more labor-intensive, but with potentially lower supply-and-materials costs, so that the fruit that results should be of higher quality, entirely free of industrial residue or traces, safer for consumption, and better for the land. The question: can 100% certified organic grapes, as stipulated in the USDA guidelines, be grown long-term in the Long Island AVAs, or is sustainable viticulture the best that can be hoped for? The Farrm has been raising organically-certified fruit and vegetables since 1990, and vinifera grapes since 2005. He has achieved this in part because he has been willing to accept smaller crops when the disease pressure is very strong, and that depends on the weather from year to year.

[9] Despite Shinn’s involvement with VineBalance, she does take issue with the term “sustainable,” holding that it can mean anything that a practitioner wants it to, and prefers to speak of “natural viticulture.”

[11] Organic Consumers Association, “Clearing up the confusion about Organic Wine,” introduction. Also see the USDA, NOP, and Labeling: § 205.301a-d, the source for the list. Only the first two items on the list (a & b) are of concern to us.

[15] Gerald B. White, “The Economics of Growing Grapes Organically,” 19white.pdf. This and other studies to be found at the http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/hort/faculty/pool/ website were all part of a project funded by the federal Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension program (SARE) from 1991-95.

[19] The need for certifying agents is mentioned in passing in the USDA, NOP, Labeling: § 205.303 (5). For a discussion of Accredited Certifying Agents (ACA) see Renée L. Robin, “Defining Organic Practices for Wines and Grapes,” in Wine Business Monthly online, section on “Getting Certified: What Rules Apply?”:

These ACAs can be private, public or non-profit entities that have received authorization to certify from the USDA. As of January 2006, there are 53 domestic ACAs and 40 foreign-based ACAs. Currently 11 of these ACAs are located in California.

[20] Joe Dressner, “Natural Wine,” The Wine Importer, speaks of the “French Natural Wine Movement,” whose members refer to themselves, “. . . as the sans soufistres” because they refuse to add sulfur to their wine when vinifying. The movement to make wine without sulfites has spread to the United States and has, indeed, been incorporated into the USDA certification standard for 100% organic (USDA, NOP, Labeling: § 205.302). The issue of what actually constitutes “natural” winemaking is open to debate, as pointed out in Pameladevi Govinda’s “Natural Progression: The Real Dirt on Natural Wine,” Imbibe Magazine online.

[21] Actually, practically speaking, it is more like ten to fifteen years, according to my interview with Barbara Shinn.

[22] See Russo and Taylor’s “Yield and Quality of Vegetable Crops . . .” Technical Abstract, which set up such a 70-meter buffer zone for their experiment.

[23] According to an article by Renée L. Robin, “Defining Organic Practices for Wines and Grapes,” in Wine Business Monthly online, production cost increases can be “as much as 5 to 10 percent” during the period of transition, after which such costs should be about the same or even less that conventional methods.

[24] Jancou, Pierre. MoreThanOrganic.com: French Natural Wine, “As it is picked, the fruit must be collected into small containers, to avoid being crushed under its own weight, and taken to the winery as quickly as possible.”

[26] Don Lotter, “Wine quality, organic viticulture and vine systemic acquired resistance to pests,” section on “Vine systemic acquired resistance and wine phenolics” (n.p.). Lotter states that “SAR is induced by low to moderate levels of insect and pathogen attack, the ability of plants, particularly organically managed plants, to induce a type of situation-responsive immunity to attack by diseases and pests is known as systemic acquired resistance (SAR), in which defensive compounds, mostly phenolics, are produced.”

[33] Barbara Shinn e-mail to me, 7 June 2010. She further asserts that “This is a huge success for the region and a big tipping point. Hopefully the region will take comfort that it can indeed be done and done well.”

Pluenneke, Geraldine. “On Good Land: Farming to a Different Beat,” Edible East End, Spring 2011; published online on 25 April 2001 at: http://www.edibleeastend.com/online_magazine/farming-to-a-different-beat/

Railey, Raven J. “Wine with a conscience: How three local wineries go green,” San Luis Obispo’s website, 4 April 2009, at http://www.sanluisobispo.com/183/story/674260.html

Robinson, Jancis, MW, “More French Wineries go Biodynamic,” SFGate.com, home of The San Francisco Chronicle, 2 February 2006.

Russo, Vincent and Merritt Taylor. “Yield and Quality of Vegetable Crops in Conventional and Organic Production Systems,” USDA Agricultural Research Service, at http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/Publications.htm?seq_no_115=194264, 1 December 2006; last modified 14 April 2009. [NOTE: this is an interpretive summary and technical abstract of a 2006 article: “Soil amendments in transition to organic vegetable production with comparison to conventional methods: Yields and economics.” HortScience, 41(7):1576-1583.]

16 thoughts on “The Challenge of Growing Certified Organic Grapes in Long Island.”

Jose transcends the “wine blogger” monicker. His writing moves passionately and with great determination into the meat of a subject, never failing to probe the deeper purpose, nor failing to give the reader more than they expected. His is academic and instructional writing for the lover of fine wines, the best of whom are rarely satisfied with the second rate fare so common today. Jose is a first tier wine writer (among other great things) and I would recommend reading his work – but be prepared to spend some time fully engaged and thoroughly entertained and seriously informed.

FYI. I was the first wine maker and second vineyard manager at Pindar. I arrived fresh out of the UC Davis viticulture program in 1983 and stayed for almost 3 years working with Dr. Dan. It was an exciting time in the industry. No one really knew what they were doing so every day was an adventure and learning experience. A lot has changed since then and I keep in touch with a lot of old friends on the forks. I'm glad they have you writing about them.

Barbara Shinn forwarded your blog to me and I read your article about organic wine growing on Long Island with great enjoyment. I only worry a little bit when writers suggest that somehow wines grown organically are necessarily, if not inexplicable, better than those grown using more traditional methods. It’s probably all a matter of personal taste and opinion, but there are a lot of options and the wine world is far too complicated to narrow down subtle quality indicators to a particular practice. That said, we are always trying to connect the dots and explain things in this business, that’s much of the fun and intellectual challenge. I look forward to reading more of your writing. We recently held a sustainable-organic-biodynamic workshop in Pennsylvania. I sent you my notes.
Mark L. Chien
State-wide Viticulture Extension Educator
Penn State Cooperative Extension
College of Agricultural Sciences
1383 Arcadia Road
Lancaster, PA 17601

Mark, thank you for your kind words regarding my post. I agree with you that one must be careful not to impute too much to wines made from organic grapes. I think that, if anything, the character and quality comes out of the terroir, and as long as the winemaker doesn’t break anything, the terroir perhaps shall express itself more clearly and cleanly under organic conditions, but it is still going to be very tough to measure objectively. Another, parallel, debate that is going on is the concept of “natural” winemaking, which itself has many ways of being defined. Natural, organic wine–that is, at least, a wine marketer’s dream.

I much enjoyed your notes from the workshop and especially appreciate the many references and links that you cited.

More postings shall be made to my blog as I visit and speak to the vineyard managers & viticulturalists of the Long Island vineyards. I’m visiting several in the next couple of days, including Shinn Estate, Macari Vineyards, Palmer, Lenz, and others. I should have a few pieces ready over the next couple of weeks.

Everyone makes mistakes, but I think one thing that concerns me about this post is that it's based on old interviews (all over a year old, having happened in spring/summer 2009).
When it comes to organics in general, and organic viticulture in particular, there are way too many moving parts, changes, updates, new techniques to rely on old, potentially out-dated data and opinions. There surely must be some more recent research as well (I don't see any articles or reports from 2010 either).
That all said, I think that more people than ever agree that organic viticulture is possible on Long Island. That of course doesn't mean that everyone agrees that it should be done (copper/soil debate) or HOW it should be done. What is most important to me as a resident of Long Island is that more and more growers are taking a hard look at what they do in the vineyard and are improving what they do — harming the land less and in most cases improving the quality of the fruit going into the winery.

Lenn, your point is well taken that we all make mistakes, and you are also right that the post does not include research published since 2009, but I have continued to follow the matter since the summer of ’09 and hadn’t found anything that substantially changes anything that I’d already written. The one piece of new information about growing organic grapes in LI comes from Barbara Shinn, in her own comments on the blog. Larry Perrine also added a link to an Australian source that is most useful in helping us to understand what is permissible for organic certification. In any case, I’ve not formed any conclusions about whether it can be achieved in LI or not. I myself consider this matter, as do you, something that is constantly shifting. I expect this to be a long conversation, and this is, as the title of the piece says, the 1st in a series. I next plan to start writing about the individual wineries and their approach to the matter of organic/sustainable/biodynamic viticulture as well as the question of natural winemaking.

It is a shame my single contribution to the discussion is an out-of-context pronouncement ( I don't recall making) that sounds wholely ignorant when taken as such.
I applaud Barbara and David's herculean efforts to prove organic farming works, if not for everyone, at least for them – which is just as important.
I may not agree that it works, but I certainly don't appreciate being portrayed as disrespectful of the process.

Larry,
Thank you for your thoughtful comments and you are right, copper can be harmful to the health of the soil. I have considered this in depth along with many intricacies of our farming system here at Shinn Estate Vineyards. Where I have found sage advice and sound solutions is by working in tandem with the Demeter Association. Unlike the National Organic Program which has no limits on copper additions, the Demeter standards and practices allows no more than 3 pounds of copper per acre to be applied and if the farm is located in an area that lies outside the threat of downy mildew, any use is extremely counseled against. This “last resort” application theory has led me to experiment with several alternatives such as the equicetum tea (both fresh and fermented) and the use of organic biological controls such as Serenade and Regalia. So far this year I am very pleased with our use of Regalia, new to this area just this year. Farming in a Biodynamic fashion allows me to look at my farm as an interlocking system where firstly I create my own fertility. Over the years our vines have achieved a System Acquired Resistance where I can now employ low impact organic materials such as the biologicals referenced above and do not need to depend solely on high impact inputs. Biology takes time, and my farm is reacting positively towards our methods. I farm this way not to prove anyone wrong, but because I enjoy it and it brings me and my vineyard staff great pleasure.
Sincerely,
Barbara Shinn

Thank you for including us in your blog post. One important correction if you could please change it as soon as possible… We are farming 100% organically here at Shinn Estate Vineyards and have entered the National Organic Program and Demeter program. We are in our first year of certification and it will take 2 more years of farming 100% organically until we can gain certification. This is a huge success for the region and a big tipping point. Hopefully the region will take comfort that it can indeed be done and done well.
Barbara Shinn

I appreciate the update, Barbara, and am delighted that you continue to be on track for full certification. By the way, I said in the blog that you were (as of April 2009) on at 85% organic on your foliate input. Are you now at 100% in that regard?

Contrary to the impression given by a comment attributed to me in the essay on Organic Viticulture on Long Island, Vitis vinifera wine grapes (Chardonnay, Merlot, etc.) can certainly be grown "organically" on Long Island. According to the the National Organic Program's General Materials List and the OMRI Product List, a grower can use either sulfur or petroleum oil to control Powdery Mildew and copper fungicides to control Downy Mildew. If one is willing to use copper fungicides for Downy control, it is possible. However, I am not willing to do that, because copper used as a fungicide ends up in the topsoil, where it permanently binds to fine soil particles (its soil half-life is 2,600 days). Therefore it builds up systematically over time to toxic levels, significantly damaging the soil micro-flora and driving earthworms from the polluted topsoil. The present scientific literature is full of articles documenting vineyard soil Cu pollution in France, Italy, New Zealand and Australia. The work of Van Zwieten et al, from Australia, can be easily accessed on the internet. The following link is a good summary of their work demonstrating the profoundly negative effects of copper fungicides on soil web health.

It is a hard decision to make. I am supportive of all grape growers who make a genuine effort to treat their soils in as gentle a way as possible, by reducing or eliminating the use of herbicides, and astutely managing their fungicide programs.
However, there really is no such thing as a "natural" or "organic" pesticide. The synthetic chemicals such as sulfur, petroleum oil, and copper that have been allowed into the National Organic Program out of necessity, are not "natural". Sulfur is not mined, it is a by-product of oil and gas refining. Petroleum oil is separated from crude oil as part of the oil refining process, and is as "natural" as gasoline. Copper is hard-rock mined, leaving wasted eco-systems behind, and is processed using many chemicals to ultimately get to the "unnatural" copper sulfate or copper hydroxide used as fungicides.

Thank you for you comment, Larry, for it represents a significant clarification about what is allowed to be “organic”. The article you’ve cited is very telling, and it raises serious questions about why certain elements such as copper, sulfur, and petroleum oil is allowed “out of necessity”. I do not believe this standard is remotely acceptable to Demeter and its adherents. This then raises the question of whether or not biodynamic viticulture is plausible in the terroir of the LI AVAs, as it does not accept was is allowed out of necessity in the Lists that you’ve mentioned. Let it be said, however, that others of your fellow viticulturalists in the Hamptons and North Fork AVAs also have asserted that 100% certified organic grapes cannot be grown there, with the sole, determined exception of Barbara Shinn, who I believe is determined to prove everyone wrong.

Comments are closed.

Subscribe to 'Wine, Seriously' via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.